MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: At the Bangalore office of real estate company Brigade, the top management is working on a hiring plan ahead of the festivals. For a few years now, the usually peak festival season hasn't been a time of joy for the housing business, but this year builders are hopeful of a revival after the Narendra Modi-led BJP swept to power in Delhi and business sentiment improved. "We will require at least 10-15% more people in sale teams by the end of September. We need to build up our sa ..

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: At the Bangalore office of real estate company Brigade, the top management is working on a hiring plan ahead of the festivals. For a few years now, the usually peak festival season hasn't been a time of joy for the housing business, but this year builders are hopeful of a revival after the Narendra Modi-led BJP swept to power in Delhi and business sentiment improved. "We will require at least 10-15% more people in sale teams by the end of September. We need to build up our sa ..

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: At the Bangalore office of real estate company Brigade, the top management is working on a hiring plan ahead of the festivals. For a few years now, the usually peak festival season hasn't been a time of joy for the housing business, but this year builders are hopeful of a revival after the Narendra Modi-led BJP swept to power in Delhi and business sentiment improved. "We will require at least 10-15% more people in sale teams by the end of September. We need to build up our sales team for upcoming launches," said Viswa Prathap Desu, vice president of sales and marketing at Brigade Group.

Like Desu, executives of other housing companies around the country are gearing up to launch new apartments, while some are hoping to clear massive unsold inventory — almost 760,000 apartments in the top-10 cities alone — beginning next month. "We are hopeful this Diwali we can light up our homes. Enquiries are up, footfalls at sites are growing and sentiment is improving by the day," said a builder in Noida who has struggled to sell hundreds of apartments launched during the boom.

Contrast this sentiment with the last two years, when the real estate sector was hit by a slowdown. "People did not lose jobs. However, they did not get regular increments and hiring did not happen," said Lalit Kumar Jain, chairman of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (Credai). He is also expecting hiring in the industry to grow by at least 10% next year.

Improvement in business sentiment and growth in job prospects is bringing buoyancy in the real estate market. "Positivity in growth hiring, which operates largely on sentiment, has returned for sure. Infrastructure has emerged as one of the hotspots for hiring and with this, real estate also tags along," said K Sudarshan, regional managing partner at executive search firm EMA Partners International.

Jain agreed. "Sentiments are good. It might take time to trickle down to exact business resumption. We (builders) are preparing grounds for the revival that might take a couple of quarters from now."

The build-up has, however, begun with builders targeting the festivals that kick off with Ganesh Chaturthi in western India and Onam in Kerala later this month, followed by Dussehra, Durga Puja and Diwali later this year. And they are leaving no stone unturned — offering easy financing options to freebies and holiday packages, going all out to woo buyers.

For the launch of its new premium projects in Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata, Tata Housing is planning to offer its buyers an international holiday in addition to flexible payment options. Chennai-based builder Green Tree Homes plans to offer EMI holidays during the construction period — buyers start paying installments only after possession, along with freebies such as modular kitchens, ACs, etc in two of its upcoming projects to be launched during Diwali.

Indians have been ranked first among foreign investors in Dubai's real estate sector, making a total of 4,417 transactions worth nearly USD 3 billion in the first half of the year, according to an official report.

With the rise in urbanization, many people in India now rush towards urban areas to settle down. And as such, property rates in major Indian cities are witnessing sharp rise between June 2012 and May 2014, according to data by real estate firm research firm PropEquity.

Indian real estate-focused private equity (PE) funds are hoping to raise around $1 billion from overseas investors, two people familiar with the matter said. Last year, realty funds managed to mop up close to $370 million from international markets, data from VCCEdge shows. Among the key realty funds that are in the market for money include Red Fort Capital, ASK Group, HDFC Property Fund and JP Morgan, these people said.

Shares of real estate and infrastructure companies are trading higher by up to 6% after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said banks would not have to maintain cash reserve ratio (CRR) or statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) and will not have to meet priority-sector lending targets for funds raised through bonds for extending credit to these sectors.

MUMBAI: The 2014-15 budget is both positive and promising that focuses on reviving the sentiment of property buyers and investors and promoting investment with a view to give fillip to construction and housing sector, a significant contributor to GDP.

MUMBAI: Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), which now seems to be a reality, is likely to net a whopping $10 billion this fiscal itself, thus providing the much-needed funds to the cash-starved developers, say industry experts.